Climate and Weather

Article Courtesy : Reuters AlertNet
Written by: Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI (AlertNet) - Floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed more than 50 people and displaced almost half a million more in India's south and northeast, say government officials.

Overflowing rivers and reservoirs have inundated low-lying villages mainly in India's oil and tea-rich state of Assam, but also on the opposite side of country in the southwestern coastal state of Kerala.

Flood-affected people sit in a damaged hut
as they wait for relief supplies in Lakhimpur
district, in India's northeastern state of Assam.
FILE PHOTO, July 2009. REUTERS/Stringer

According to the ministry of home affairs, almost one million people have been hit by the floods, forcing almost half a million to leave their water-logged villages and seek shelter in government relief camps.

Mountainous Assam, where five people have drowned, has been the worst-affected with 13 out of 27 districts hit by flooding, including Kokrajhar, Lakhimpur, Baksa and Bongaigaon.

The report examines the effect of periodicity in the rainfall records on the water availability of Damanganga basin in Nasik and Thane districts of Maharashtra. Based on the rainfall-runoff record of a shorter period, runoff series for a longer period is developed using a water balance model. The per cent deviation in water availability estimations computed using short term wet and dry records from the complete records is examined. The effect of length of time-series on the water availability estimates is also studied.

Organizer: Pradip Saha

Topic: Screening of the film- Mean Sea Level.  Directed by Pradip Saha for CSE

Venue: Alliance Francaise De Bangalore

Description:

Around 7500 Kms from the heart of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] in Geneva or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] secretariat in Bonn, Ghoramara and Sagar islands are going through their own testimony of climate change related phenomena.

The study aims to assess the impacts of various climate scenarios on the hydrological response of the high altitude Spiti river in the Himalayas. The climatic scenarios were constructed on the basis of simulations of the Hamburg coupled atmosphere-ocean climate model for the study region.

The report gives an account of a feasibility study of rainwater harvesting in semi-arid regions. A review of water harvesting systems is followed by a section wherein numerical solutions for surface flow equations are explained. 

In this study, a two-dimensional overland flow model has been developed considering random roughness coefficients and irregular land surface for the analysis of surface flow component. The one-dimensional Richards equation for subsurface flow component has been used for calculating the infiltration from the pervious area.

Orissa becomes the first state in the country to have earned the distinction of having action plan on climate change. Following the National Action Plan of India started in 2008 the document of Orissa provides the action for the period of 2010-2015 having a budget of 17,000 crore.

This report is a compilation of the hydrological news in the print media in the country for the year 1997-98. The report is an attempt to put forth diverse hydrologic information and events reflecting the problems and indicate solutions for hydrologists, planners and water resource managers in particular. Five national newspapers like Hindustan Times, Indian Express and Hindu etc., have been referred to, for tracking the Indian hydrological events due to flood, drought, quality, demand supply and availability.

The report deals with the hydrological aspects of flood disaster management, a multi-disciplinary field that endeavors to enhance the total productivity of the flood plains wherein losses are only a part of it. There are climatological and part-climatological causes of flooding and basin conditions, channel conditions and network conditions intensify floods.

The report is set in the context of the growing application of computers in the field of hydrology, and the consequent development of large number of softwares for hydrological and allied applications. The report is structured as a Directory and presents brief details about softwares for hydrological and general purpose application available with the National Institute of Hydrology.